Realistic Fantasy Elf Warrior Game Character

This is my final University of Staffordshire Assignment where we were given a Flix Interactive Live Brief (for students) and had to create a realistic fantasy character for them. 
I decided for this to create a winter warrior elf character. I wanted to explore an area I haven't explored as much, and that was the winter aspect, I set out to create winter clothing in order to keep the character warm. I also wanted to work on creating armour for this assignment. 
My process for this started as first creating a photo bash concept with I developed into a very rough concept. I decided to do it this way so I could get all the elements I specifically wanted to work on together. Once I had done that it was time to create the block out, which I did using Zbrush. This allowed me to see what worked, how it would all fit effectively and if it would accurately work in real life. Then once I started to develop this into a base mesh, focusing on just the body and face I brought it into Marvelous and began the garment creation, focusing a lot on layering and telling a story I wanted the clothing to accurately represent a cold environment so the sole purpose was keeping her warm and protected. 
After this I brought it all back into Zbrush to develop further. Sculpting armour and the detailing for all the weariness, age, and fabric detailing. 
My next step in the pipeline was retopology. I did this using Maya. I first get in the animation loops to make sure it will move accurately in game. Then I develop it further into a "draft" version. This is kept relatively low poly so I could move onto the hair cards. I knew Id have a lot of hair cards so I wanted to allow space for me to add them all in. I created the hair cards in Maya using GS Curve tools and the texture sheets in Maya Xgen, and Substance Designer. One I had gotten the hair to a good standard I went back to the topology stage and checked the count. I then was able to add in more loops and topology where needed, focusing mostly on areas that would bend or flow when in animation. 
The unwrap for this was completed in 3DS Max and I focused on making use of the space well but selecting edges, straightening them, freezing them and relaxing and adjusting the rest of the unwrap piece. This allowed me to straight the pieces out effectively to get the best use of space resulting in a good quality texel density. 
Finally it was time to texture, this was done using Substance Painter. I always first start out getting my base colours in. Then through developing and adjusting I made use of some generators and alphas through my process to try and get modern techniques used through the process. 
My last few stages was rigging, skinning and then rendering. 
Fore rigging I used Maya, and tried to create some intimidating poses to best showcase her power and strength. For the rendering I used Unreal Engine 5. I tried to create a serious, tense environment using assets from Fab and market place. For lighting I tried techniques like 3 point lighting and HDRIs. I mainly used HDRIs as it gave off the stormy, tense scene I wanted. The final tri count with the hair cards is, 91,234